This is the largest cross border mass abduction by Boko Hatsm. Scores of women and children are believed to have been taken. “The Cameroon attack occurred in Mabass village, in the Far North region, Issa Tchiroma Bakary said. He said 80 houses were destroyed and “between 30 and 50” people were believed to have been abducted…The attacks in Nigeria and Cameroon highlight the growing regional threat posed by Boko Haram. The attacks occurred three days after Cameroon President Paul Biya announced Chad would send “an important contingent” to support Cameroon’s army as it tries to repel the extremists’ intensifying offensive.” (AP http://yhoo.it/1CDob94)
Notorious CAR Rebel Leader Nabbed… “A leader of Central African Republic’s anti-Balaka Christian militia, a widely feared commander who has been implicated in attacks on civilians throughout the battle-scarred country, has been arrested, a justice official said Sunday. Rodrigue Ngaibona, alias Andilo, was arrested in the town of Bouca on Saturday by Cameroonian peacekeepers, prosecutor Maurice Dibert-Dollet said in a statement. An arrest warrant was issued last May linking Ngaibona to murders, rapes and looting during the country’s unprecedented sectarian violence in which thousands have died.” (AP http://yhoo.it/17Y0y1z)
Boko Haram/Nigeria
A suicide bomber killed four people and wounded dozens Sunday in an attack on a bus station in Potiskum, northeastern Nigeria, police and hospital sources said. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1CDo4KV)
About 150 people marched through the center of the Nigerian capital on Saturday demanding change in a country wracked by a violent Islamist insurgency in the north. (VOA http://bit.ly/15fUFfl)
Tens of thousands of people joined a march in N’Djamena on Saturday in support of Chadian troops heading to Nigeria and Cameroon to fight the Islamist group Boko Haram. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1yziY36)
Africa
Police in Niger fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of opposition supporters who gathered in the capital Niamey on Sunday in defiance of a ban on a demonstration against what they see as poor governance, witnesses said. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/15fUxfL)
Prevention of waterborne diseases is a priority in Malawi where floods have killed at least 176 people, an aid official said Sunday. (AP http://yhoo.it/15fUhgX)
At least six people perished in a tropical storm that battered Madagascar over the past two days, affecting almost 80,000 residents, according to an official toll published Sunday. (AFP http://yhoo.it/15fUmkw)
An opposition leader in Congo has called for demonstrations after lawmakers passed a measure requiring a census before presidential elections scheduled for 2016 — a move critics say is designed to prolong the president’s time in office. (AP http://yhoo.it/15fUl09)
Zambians head to the polls on Tuesday in a special election to choose a new president for the copper-rich southern African nation and replace Michael Sata who died last year. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1CDojp3)
A Belgian and a Zimbabwean working for international agribusiness company Socfin Group have been shot during a protest over land rights in Sierra Leone, police said on Saturday. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1yziYjF)
As foreign donors drag their feet on injecting badly needed cash into the Tanzanian government’s coffers, local analysts are increasingly worried that this will affect implementation of key development projects that require donor funding. (IPS http://bit.ly/1yzjJZY)
Figures show that thousands of children in Zimbabwe are infected with HIV – presenting a major battlefield for government efforts to defeat the spread of HIV /AIDS nationwide. (IPS http://bit.ly/1yzjGx7)
MENA
Libya’s warring factions have agreed to a UN brokered ceasefire. (UN News Center http://bit.ly/17Y0lf1 )
Libya’s unofficial parliament voted on Sunday to only attend U.N.-sponsored peace talks if they were held inside the country, a lawmaker said. (Reuters http://bit.ly/1yzjw97)
Syrian forces have evacuated nearly 4,000 people from a rebel bastion close to Damascus that has been under government siege for nearly two years, state media said Sunday. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1sRBGSl)
Asia
Five Pakistani men have been arrested in Afghanistan in connection with the Taliban massacre of 134 school children in the Pakistani city of Peshawar last month, officials from both countries said on Sunday. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/15fUpNe)
Brazil and the Netherlands recalled their ambassadors from Indonesia and expressed fury Sunday after Jakarta defied their pleas and executed two of their citizens along with four other drug offenders. (AFP http://yhoo.it/15fUwsb)
The Americas
A U.S. congressional delegation is in Cuba in the first such visit since President Barack Obama announced last month that Washington would normalize relations with the island nation. (VOA http://bit.ly/1CDs9P9)
Thousands of young Peruvians have marched through central Lima, chanting: “We don’t want to be cheap, exploited manpower”, in the latest protest against a controversial labour law which demonstrators claim robs them of basic rights, but which the government argues will boost employment. (Guardian http://bit.ly/15pPc4Z)
Opinion/Blogs
Patently unfair: On the need for more equitable drug pricing (Humanosphere http://bit.ly/15gn9Wj)
Why is the world blind to the fresh threat of genocide in Darfur? (The Guardian http://bit.ly/1CDEVx0)
When Blogging is a Crime (UN Dispatch http://bit.ly/1yzzGzh)
Statistical Assessments of Coup Risk for 2015 (Dart Throwing Chimp http://bit.ly/1CDCn1O)’
Boko Haram massacre: how Nigeria deals with trauma (The Guardian http://bit.ly/15pPkkW)
Five tests for development success in 2015 (Overseas Development Institute http://bit.ly/15pPrx3)
Kabila reevaluates his plans (Rachel Strohm http://bit.ly/15pPqJx)
Research/Reports
Efforts by David Cameron to parachute his former health secretary, Andrew Lansley, into a plum United Nations role have met with furious opposition from numerous of the world’s leading international disaster-relief organisations. (Guardian http://bit.ly/1CDsiCe)